via ljapp

:-\

Posted on by dubiago

Well, this can’t be good. I got a message from a guy on eBay, the guy to whom I sold my iBook. He says it hasn’t arrived. Fortunately, I just happened to have the receipt from the post office in my jacket. I’m going to scan it and email it to him tomorrow. This is quite disturbing, indeed :-\ While a receipt can’t necessarily say much of anything, I suppose that it can say that I did, indeed send it. I’d better keep a number of copies of that scan around, just to be paranoid–it’s all I have :-\

On the plus side, I had quite the awesome Monday-like Tuesday. I was tired for most of the day, and will definitely get a good night in this fine eve. It’s 44 degrees here. Practically a sauna. lol.

I started playing some Morrowind this weekend again. I’m getting the itch for Oblivion, which doesn’t come out for another month. I even got Ruthie into Morrowind 😀 She seems to like it so far, though it’s much easier to attack in Morrowind than World of Warcraft. She just needs to learn where not to point her blades 🙂

Other than that, it’s been fairly uneventful around these parts; just a plane jane week. Since it’s getting warmer, and it seems to be staying lighter later again, I think I’ll start getting some hardcore riding in again. I need to refit the Trek after the long humid winter and get her ship-shape again.

I burned my first Dual Layer DVD over the weekend. My first burn was a backup of my mp3 collection. Sadly enough, all of my mp3s fit on one DL disc. Not only did I jump into Napster a bit late, but I jumped in when I was on dial-up, which made it even worse. So, I have an itty bitty lil music collection. Anyhoo, DL discs are nice, if not expensive.

Extreme Geek Post

Posted on by dubiago

So, I got a new laptop. Yes, I’m such a trader of tech. I get teased about it way too often 😉 I see something that’s really kewl, or something that seems really kewl and I trade for it. eBay is my is truly my geek heaven. My iBook is eBay fodder–though I did get 90% of the value for it which payed for most of the new laptop 😀

Anyway, this new laptop has a Radeon x600. It features 128MB of dedicated video memory (it’s a hybrid card of shared/dedicated memory bringing total available video memory to 256MB).

I was playing Half-Life: 2 Lost Coast this early evening because WoW was down. I found out, because I hadn’t played around in the settings much before, that the video card has HDR capability!!

HDR (High Dynamic Range) Rendering is a brand new technology in video cards (it’s been around since 1985, actually) that was used in the Lost Coast episode of HL: 2 to simulate how the human eye reacts to light.

The video card on my desktop doesn’t currently support HDR, but I will probably be upgrading the video card fairly soon and it will more than likely have that capability thereafter.

Anyway, I was totally blown away by what it looked like. Below are screenshots of what I saw. It may not seem like much, but to a gaming geek like myself, it’s frickin’ amazing. Really, to have the full impact, you need to have the screenshots side-by-side.

Church windows (HDR off)
Church windows (HDR on)
Hallway (HDR off)
Hallway (HDR on)

Bleh

Posted on by dubiago

I’ve been slightly (well, ok, majorly) sniffly over the weekend. That seems to be the only symptom, though. I had a bit of a sore throat that lasted only a day last half of the week, and I don’t appear to have a fever. Not really worrying about it at this point, just resting and fighting it with decongestants and this really cool vapor thingie that plugs into the wall. It’s kind of like using Vicks without actually slathering all that stuff on ya. It seemed to work to help me get to sleep, although I did wake up quite stuffy again in the morning. All-in-all, it was decent–I always have a tough time getting to sleep when stuffy. Anyhoo, I’ll prolly go see the doc if it’s not markedly better by Monday or Tuesday.

I haven’t done too terribly much this weekend. I’ve played WoW here and there, went to visit the folks yesterday. Other than that, it’s been a lot of rest.

I think I’ll watch some SG-1 and then nap a little. *edit* Jessica Steen played Dr. Elizabeth Weir in the episodes (parts I and II) of “The Lost City”. I think Tori Higginson plays a better Weir 😛

Totally Frakked Up

Posted on by dubiago

Europeans.. Pffft..

Now, I’m not necessarily a fan of Microsoft’s business practices, but the fact that Europe asked for it and got it just boggles my mind. Where is the control going to be? It’s going to be with those that buy the source code. Beyond the fact that people could clone the OS, this could open up huge security holes the likes of which have never been seen before. Those who buy the source code might have the potential to not only hang M$ by the short hairs, but also do some very destructive things to computers far and wide.

It’s one thing where Linux, the “galliant steed” of the OSS world has its internal workings on the public domain. I certainly believe a lot less people gun for Linux machines than they do Windows. People without a fortune always tend to hate those with money. I fear that, if this means full disclosure of all source code, that it could have the potential to turn into very bad things for end-users and system admins alike.

Ooooh, I hope this isn’t going where I think it’s going :-\ If it is, our jorbs are certainly going to be cut out for us.

Sleep!!!

Posted on by dubiago

I wasn’t sleeping all that well the past few nights, so I had been doing a good bit of napping. Finally, I think I’ve caught up.

So, it looks like Wrigley is well on its way to being done by the beginning of the season. I certainly wouldn’t mind getting up there this summer to have a look.

I caught the Stargates and Galactica. All were quite smashing, although SG-1 has been rather predictable of-late. Some of the stories have been quite predictable, so far, and have had elements that I’ve seen in a couple of other places. Galactica was amazing, as always. I wonder if now the President will give Sharon’s baby a reprieve. I think Baltar will soon find himself on a Basestar. lol. He truly is evil.

I’ve been catching up on Season Seven of SG-1. I think this is about where I hopped in when I began watching on SciFi Friday. It’s been pretty good, although I think I hopped in during the second half of it.

As rare as it is, I finally got a haircut today *the crowd gasps* I really should get those more often 😛 6 months between them just doesn’t cut it *BA DOOM CHING* That automatically whoops any puns garibaldicu can throw up this week. hehe.

Football!

Posted on by dubiago

Some people watch baseball only during the playoffs.. I, on the other hand, watch football only during the playoffs (hell, many times I really don’t even know who’s in the playoffs, except for the teams I’m watching–and yes, I’m too lazy to go to espn.com to check it out). Such things are a supposed travesty here in the South, if you ask any Alabama or Auburn football fan–it’s a hallowed sport to them. I really don’t know why; it’s just a sport 😛 To me, playing sports is much more fun than rooting for a college team whose college I never attended–UAH has a hockey team and a few other teams, but hockey is pretty much their biggest sport.

Anyhoo, tonight shall be one of those nights where I do watch a game. Da Bears are taking on the Panthers on this fine eve, and I think I shall give it a gander. I think I’ll probably watch it in-between all of the laundering I must do.

Battlestar Galactica was frakking awesome on Friday night. Spoiler is here.